Mel'nikov, Konstantin Stepanovich

Mel'nikov, Konstantin Stepanovich (1890–1974). Russian architect who rose to eminence in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. His early work was influenced by Tatlin, and he evolved an architecture partly informed by traditional rural timber buildings using roughly sawn members (e.g. the USSR Pavilion at the Exposition in Paris of 1925, a split rectangle slashed by powerful diagonals (perhaps anticipating aspects of Deconstructivism), which gained him international celebrity among the avant-garde). Although his work has been associated by some with Constructivism, he was more connected with the Productivists, who saw themselves as anti-artistic Constructivist technicians. He is best known for his Workers' Factory Clubs in Moscow, including the Frunze (1927), Rubber (1927), Rusakov (1927), Svoboda (1927–8), and Stormy Petrel (1929). The Rusakov Club has auditoria and circulation-spaces externally expressed in strong elemental forms. His own house in Moscow essentially consisted of two interlocking cylinders (1927–9), a theme he explored in other buildings.

Bibliography

Khan-Magomedov (1987);
Pallasmaa & and Gozak (1996);
S. F. Starr (1978)